


Pretty Lies, Ugly Truths

by EvilPeaches



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Daddy Issues, Dubious Consent, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Explicit Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Master/Slave, Self-Loathing, The Master Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 11:48:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1647587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilPeaches/pseuds/EvilPeaches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, Reek thinks that Ramsay may need Reek more than Reek needs Ramsay.</p>
<p>After all, you only hate what you love, don’t you?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pretty Lies, Ugly Truths

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of felt like delving into the mental/physiological side of this relationship a little further. Obviously Ramsay has some serious issues and I wanted to work with how Reek/Theon views them.

_ there's an emptiness, there's a hole inside _  
_you treat my body like your own_  
 _marks on my chest keep you on my mind_  
 _it's a sin you drive into my bones_  
 _this is what you came for, but you took so much more_

_"Close Enough To Kill” – Emily Browning_

* * *

He notices every expression in vivid detail. He notices the things that make him smile, strange and morbid as those things may be. He notices the quirks, the odd habits. He even notices and anticipates the things that he knows will amuse him, as terrible as those things often are. 

In fact, Reek notices everything about his master, Ramsay.

He even notices what hurts him.

Roose Bolton isn’t simply a cold man, he is a _passionless_ man and it is without any emotion that he shames and humiliates his only remaining son in front of his men. “Send me, Father,” Ramsay says of their latest campaign against the rebelling families, “Send me. I will represent the Dreadfort and the family. I can lead the men and will strike fear into our enemies hearts. You know I can!”

Pale eyes regard the young man impassively. “Yes,” Roose Bolton replies softly, “You could. But you won’t, as you are not part of my family. Foolish of you to forget. I will take the men myself. You will continue to hold the Dreadfort in my stead.”

Reek recognizes the look on his master’s face, the way his expression becomes shuttered, to hide the rage and hurt. The hands clenched into fists, so tight that the knuckles go white. Reek recognizes it and feels the sharp agony as if it is his own, because against all the odds, he _understands_ what that sort of pain feels like. “Yes, Father. I understand,” Ramsay grits out from between his clenched teeth.

He is prone to violent, hot rages, so unlike his father and it takes more than just effort to keep them contained. 

Roose brushes past his son gruffly and Ramsay doesn’t turn to acknowledge the man’s absence; he is frozen in place, in his own mind. Reek can see the scene, the words, replaying over and over in his master’s head. The way his pale grey blue eyes go far away and his face tightens. If Reek were to explain what his master is feeling, it would be the sharpest of agonies, the deepest of rejections. It’s a feeling that starts low in your stomach, like being punched repeatedly, and then makes its way to your heart, where it burns like the coldest fire. After the fire has burned your insides you feel nothing but empty and hateful.

You feel unwanted. 

Reek ducks his head as all these emotions pitter through his body in tandem with his master’s. In this, Reek understands his master. Reek never had a father, but the boy that he used to be did. That boy, so far away he seems now, had a cold father, one prone to anger and selfishness. That father was prideful and could not accept his son, his son who only wanted to make him feel _something_ for him. 

“Master? The…the servants told me your meal is ready,” Reek says, meekly as is his way.

The sound of his voice drags Ramsay out of his dark thoughts, as it always does. He turns and looks at his Reek, blinking for a moment as if he had forgotten he was there. “Reek,” he says, more to himself than to Reek himself. “I suppose I am hungry. Follow me, now. How boring my meal would be without my loyal dog beside me, after all.”

He strides off at a brisk pace, back towards the keep. Reek struggles to keep up, his mangled feet giving him difficulty. Just like that, his master shoves his emotions away and Reek is glad, because he hates feeling those emotions. He feels what his master feels these days, as if he is completely empathetic to Ramsay’s emotions. When he enters the dining hall, he crawls to his place at his master’s feet. He looks up into Ramsay’s face as he bites into a chicken leg. As if feeling Reek’s eyes upon his face, Ramsay looks down at him briefly, but there is no pleasure or displeasure there, just emptiness. 

So, Reek moves closer, so close that he can smell the familiar scent of forest and earth that hangs about his master and rests against his leg. He basks in the warmth and Ramsay doesn’t bat an eye, most likely too focused on his father’s earlier words to admonish his pet for taking comfort where he doesn’t deserve any. Reek wonders if his master will feed him any of the scraps, his mouth watering at the smells coming from the table above. It would be another comfort that Reek doesn’t deserve, but his master may be kind enough to provide. Lost in his daydream of hunger, Reek does not realize that his master has placed a hand on his head, playing gently with his hair. “Reek, are you hungry? Did you want me to give you the scraps?”

Coming back to the present, Reek looks up at his master and tries to think of what he wants to hear, tries to think of how to tread carefully, because there is no telling what state of mind his master is in after those words from his father. “My lord, I would not be deserving of your scraps. You are too generous to me, your Reek,” says Reek, his voice dry and raspy from thirst.

Pale eyes go darker for a moment as Ramsay regards him. Reek does not want to know what his master thinks when he looks at him like this. The look is too close to fondness and adoration; such emotions are terrifying coming from a madman. Reek scuttles closer, because madman or not, his master is all he has and it is better to have him believe that his Reek feels the same about him.  
“Oh, Reek. Of course you are not deserving of such a gift,” Ramsay says as he smirks down at his pet.

Reek tries to not wither at those words, because oh how he had hoped telling Ramsay what he wanted to hear would get him the reward of scraps, the scraps he so desperately wants. He nuzzles into Ramsay’s hand, trying to show that he doesn’t care that he won’t feed him, that he still wants to be close no matter what. He wants to be with his master no matter what he does to him.

“But you are mine and I can be generous,” Ramsay mutters, placing his plate on the floor before Reek.

Reek tries to not fall upon the scraps in his eagerness. Instead he remembers his master’s needs first, because they are the most important. “Thank…thank you, Master. You are so good to Reek. I do not deserve you.”

Ramsay smiles oddly and gestures for his pet to get on with eating his scraps. Reek falls upon the food desperately and sucks and nibbles at the remains while Ramsay chuckles mockingly in the background. Reek doesn’t mind, Ramsay fed him after all. Ramsay chose to feed his undeserving pet and Reek knows why, deep down.

Reek is eating scraps because Reek gives Ramsay what his father won’t.

* * *

It is later, when night has fallen upon the castle that Ramsay takes his pet with him to bed. His father has left the keep and his cold, knowing eyes and disappointed looks are long gone. Lord Bolton would not approve of his son’s proceedings with his creature, because even though the creature, Reek, has been de-manned, he still was a man once and Bolton’s do not lay with men for comfort.  
But Ramsay is not yet a Bolton, so what does it matter? It does not matter to Reek; he would rather endure such occurrences to the torture. The boy that Reek used to be would have rather taken the torture than endure Ramsay’s touch. It is a strange irony.

“Get on the bed, Reek.”

Reek pauses, if only for a second. He stands before his master, naked, ashamed of how he looks even though his master’s eyes eat him whole. He limps to the bed and sinks into the furs. Ramsay looks at him from across the room and begins to take his clothes off, his eyes never leaving his Reek’s. He walks slowly to the bed in measure steps, like a predator approaching its prey. When he reaches the bed, he sits beside Reek and sits in silence. It is awkward, but Reek has no right to speak. 

Ramsay grabs Reek’s hand and presses it against his cock, which has slowly been hardening. He guides Reek’s hand for awhile, slowly guiding it up and down with his eyes staring into Reek’s. It is far more intimate than Reek would like it to be and he wants to scuttle away and hide in the dark from the sensation that he is being pulled into Ramsay’s orbit of constantly changing emotions. After all, this is Ramsay’s feeling, not Reek’s. Reek only feels what his master wants him to feel. 

With strong hands, Ramsay pushes his pet further down into the furs and presses against him fully, rocking his hips against his frail body, teeth and lips scouring his neck. His hands are everywhere and Reek wonders why Ramsay has to bother with all of this, but deep down he thinks he might know.

So when Ramsay finally thrusts into Reek with his stormy pale eyes screwed shut and jaw clenched so tightly that his teeth clash together, Reek knows what is happening behind those lids. Reek knows because he’s felt the emptiness before, the void that he always tried to fill with girls and whores when he was a boy named Theon Greyjoy. That young man used to look for a shred of affection anywhere, because that Theon didn’t belong with anyone, not even with his own family.

Reek is no longer empty anymore; he knows who he belongs with now. Unlike everyone who has come before, his master actually _needs_ Reek to love him. Who is Reek to deny his lord, his lord who has been so _kind_ to him?

Reek listens with detached interest to Ramsay’s grunts and gasps, the slap of their skin together. Sometimes the whole process hurts immensely, but in general Reek prefers this activity to all of the others. Anything is better than the flaying knife, the sting of the whip. Reek would rather bear the brunt of his master’s affections than endure his other attentions.

Anything is better than a pain so intense that one forgets their own name.

The touch of Ramsay’s hand against the empty space between his legs makes Reek keen weakly, causing his lord to grind into him from behind roughly. The scars are still sensitive, so it is a pain and odd pleasure when Ramsay runs his fingers against them. The shame boils in Reek’s stomach and he closes his eyes as his master covers one of his crippled hands with his own tightly, in some semblance of being close. 

It’s an illusion that Ramsay seems to prefer to anything else and it cuts Reek’s mind to pieces because he can’t keep up with what is cruelty and what isn’t anymore.  
Reek can feel the swelling of his lord inside of him as he nears his finish. The excited twitch and jerk of his hips is also giving him away. Reek feels so full, feels like he is one with his master for one brief, agonizing moment. Ramsay’s strong hand is gripping Reek’s as if he is afraid of letting go and hellfire it _hurts_. “Tell me…tell me who you belong to,” Ramsay gasps out, sweat beading on his forehead. 

Always the dutiful slave, Reek answers brokenly, “You, my lord. I belong to you.”

_And you belong to me, even if you don’t know it yet,_ Reek thinks treacherously before quickly erasing the thought. 

Ramsay’s cock is brushing against that spot inside of Reek, but he fights the feeling down, he ignores it. Reek does not deserve to climax, but even if he was, Reek isn’t sure he would want to, not sure what it would mean. He has long since hidden away the memory of that boy he was before, the boy who did once finish from Ramsay’s cruel affections. Reek has hidden that memory so far in the back of his mind, because the shame and self-loathing in that memory is too horrible to bear.

With a cry, Ramsay fills his Reek, whispering, _you’re mine forever, pet._ Reek feels the heat of his master’s seed as it floods his insides and he feels the relief knowing that his master has been satisfied. There shouldn’t be any further agonies this night. 

When it is over, Ramsay sighs and falls onto Reek’s small form briefly in exhaustion. His weight is crushing and Reek’s eyes water as he tries to inhale under the pressure. He thinks he is going to faint when his master finally rolls off of him, coming to a rest beside Reek. When Reek turns his head to look at his master, he finds those pale, grey blue eyes trained on him with a searching expression. “Reek,” Ramsay breathes, “I am tired. Put your arms around me. Yes, Reek, _your_ scrawny arms, don’t look so confused.”

The request is bizarre, but Reek is not completely surprised; his master has strange wants at strange times. As long as it doesn’t involve a knife…Reek feels relief. Awkwardly, he tries to enclose Ramsay in some form of an embrace. It is odd, holding the other man, who suddenly seems far away in his own thoughts, almost as if he has forgotten Reek is beside him. Ramsay is warm; his sweat is cooling on his skin and Reek enjoys the feeling of being warm despite it coming from the person who is in his arms.

“You love me, don’t you, Reek?” The words are barely a whisper and they seem to come from nowhere, from a ghost. 

It does not take much thought for Reek to understand the question, the question that often comes from a child in need of care and adoration; a child that wants to know that someone cares about them. Reek used to be that child…when he was that other person. That person that he isn’t anymore. 

Reek does not need to think, the words have been falling from his ruined lips like water as of late. “Yes, Master, I do.”

_I have no choice but to love you, you are all that is left in this world of agony_

When Reek meets his masters’ eyes, the emptiness is there, behind the danger, forever lurking. “You _what_ , Reek?”

Reek will say whatever his master wants. “I…I love you, my lord.”

There is a flicker in Ramsay’s eyes and for a moment Reek thinks his master is going to kiss him, the look on his face so raw. Then it dies as quickly as it came, as if Ramsay had to crush his own response to the words. 

“Of course you do,” Ramsay mutters, no longer looking at Reek.

At those words, Ramsay finally closes his arctic eyes. His breathing slows, as does his pulse and Reek knows because he’s been staring at the artery in his master’s neck. Reek looks at his sleeping master fearfully, afraid that it is a trick, but after nothing happens, Reek calms and relaxes against him. As Reek watches his master’s face, angelic and careless in sleep, he feels something dark twist in his heart, his rotting heart that has felt nothing but fear for so long.

The dark feeling inside blossoms into a painful fire, excruciating and all consuming; this feeling is not fear and for a moment it burns Reek away. Theon stares at the sleeping Ramsay Snow, and _oh, how he hates him._

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and Comments please! You know I love hearing what you think, fellow creepyshippers :D


End file.
